Looking
by Sonata Appassionata
Summary: Yet in the dark corners of alleyways, in the noisy bustle of streets, in the winding curves of country roads, she looks for him. After two centuries, Thalia still looks for her one true love.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Thalia. Sadly, Luke isn't mine either. That stupid hot blonde.**

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_All along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years. I love you for a thousand more..._

_- Christina Perri, "A Thousand Years"_

* * *

She looks for him.

She has sworn to forget him, willing herself to erase all traces of him from her memory. She has hoped that time, at least, will finally wash him away. She struggles on as days past, then weeks that blends into months, stretching to form years. Sunrise and sunset melts into the blur of shadows that plays through her fingertips.

Yet in the dark corners of alleyways, in the noisy bustle of streets, in the winding curves of country roads, she still looks for him.

Didn't he say he'd choose to be reborn?

She peers into the sapphire blue eyes of men who brush past her at crowded junctions. She stalks surly teenagers into backs of bookstores. She glances moments too long at playground-hogging blonde toddlers. She hopes. She prays.

She turns away, disappointed.

* * *

She is running now, the rhythm of the hunters' boots pounding in her ears. Her foot slips on the wet muddy ground. She draws her bow, staring around wildly.

_Always be ready. You never know._

There it is again. His voice when she least expects it. She scowls, gritting her teeth.

"What do you sense, Phoebe? Where is the beast?" She keeps her voice level, the way she had trained herself to speak.

"Up ahead, lieutenant."

She shoots a sideways look at her fellow huntress, then snaps her gaze back to the opposite side of the road, narrowed eyes fixed on the bushes, anticipating. She readies her bow, waiting for the hydra to lunge out of the bushes.

A slither. A hiss from behind her.

She whirls, not a moment too soon.

The knife-wielding dracaena behind her swings its blade in a downward strike, aiming right at her chest. She curses. They had been so preoccupied with the hydra that they had forgotten about monsters lurking up from behind.

She dives to one side, avoiding the strike, and at the speed of light, the blade is knocked out of the demon's grip as Phoebe intercepts the blow and plunged her own hunting knife into its throat.

The snake-legged she-monster disintegrates into ash.

The dozen or so hunters stand there for a moment, breathing hard. She stares at the slowly dispersing ash, slowly blown away by the wind and rain. She bites her tongue as the memory comes, clear as day, the century old vision of his arm pushing her back as he drove his dagger into a similar demon, holding on until it vaporized completely.

No. She shouldn't be thinking of this. Why is it so hard just to forget, to just be the indifferent virgin huntress of Artemis she should be?

She swallows.

Then she puts on her hunter's face.

"Let's continue tracking that hydra, shall we?"

* * *

She is the lieutenant of the huntresses, the most skilled of servants Lady Artemis has seen in millennium. She tracks demons that have eluded heroes for aeons. She hunts down beasts she has never seen or heard before, yet she can never find her one true love.

He, the one who stole her an extra $20 on her birthday so she could have the satisfaction of going to the posh store and buy that black shirt she loved. He, the one who woke her from nightmares and held her until she fell asleep again. His lips, the last thing she felt on her own before being claimed by darkness on the top of that hill.

He, the one whom she still loves, so badly, two centuries later.

And so she searches for him.

She will give up anything to see him again.

* * *

In the dark corners of alleyways, in the noisy bustle of streets, in the winding curves of country roads, she looks for him.

But not once outside her dreams, does she see him look back.


End file.
